Please hold on to it just a little longer. Don't be so eager to get to Sunday that you miss the agony of Friday. Friday was nothing like the ways we normally think of Easter - color and light and music. It was blood and gore and sin and heartbreak on steroids. There is nothing at all good about Good Friday.
"Michelle, what in the world are you talking about about? Of course Friday is good! Jesus died for our sins! Isn't that a good thing?"
Of course it is. I am eternally grateful for that. It is, in every sense, the good news of the gospel - He paid my price so I don't have to. Hallelujah!
But the way He did it was not good. The day He did it was not good. The fact that He had to do it because we humans decided it was a good idea to get caught up in the universe's conflict, definitely not good. As for what we go through in this life, not just as a result of what we've done, but for what those around us have done...no, it's not good.
Sometimes what we go through in this life isn't our fault or doing. Sometimes it's what's been done to us. If it is our fault, we have our guilt and shame to wrestle with. If it isn't, forgiveness is hard to give. Wounds, whether inflicted by self or someone else, hurt. And yes, sometimes, you don't know when, or if, Sunday is coming.
But Sunday came. Jesus rose. His victory is my victory. Your victory. Good Friday is only Good Friday because of Sunday.
But for now, perhaps you are in a Friday season, and there is nothing good about it. It wasn't just a Friday season for the Son of God, but for all who loved Him. The crowds who had listened to Him. The people He had healed. The children He had blessed. The disciples who had lived with Him, including the one who stood under the cross, watching in agony as his best friend slowly and painfully died. The woman who gave birth to Him, who had been promised amazing things about Him, going through unspeakable horror and confusion. They didn't know that Sunday was coming. They didn't know that His suffering would bring their healing.
I hope and pray you know what they didn't. I hope that this Good Friday, you don't rush away from it because you're afraid of the pain. I hope you pause in the middle of the suffering, and remember that He bled, not just for your sin, but for your pain. For your heartache. For all the terrible things in life you don't understand.
I hope you know that Sunday is coming. But for now, let His life bleed into the middle of your wounds, and find your healing. Your redemption. Someone different from who you've been, because it's not possible to approach the cross and walk away unchanged. I pray you find the "good" in your Good Friday...but if not, that's ok. No one two thousand years ago got it either. Nevertheless, I hope He breaks through. I hope that like Jesus on Holy Saturday, you find a season of rest between the agony and the victory.
No, Good Friday wasn't good. Not for Jesus. But it's because His wasn't, that ours can be. That, by itself, is something worth rejoicing about.
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